


the rhyme of salvation

by LymeandCoconut



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, The story that should have been told, begins at the end of 15x19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LymeandCoconut/pseuds/LymeandCoconut
Summary: “Nothing human can exist in the Empty,” Jack replied, shaking his head. “It would just - spit you back out, and probably kill you in the process.”“Then -” Dean pulled in a deep breath. Made his choice. “Then make me not human.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester (background)
Comments: 173
Kudos: 1352





	1. the face of all the world is changed

**Author's Note:**

> "People unfamiliar with the show may also not realize that when Castiel first came on the show, he saved Dean from hell - because Dean had also made a deal, a deal trading his life for the one he loved most, his brother. Castiel made a deal trading his life for the one he loved most, his son. That is a parallel, a rhyme to this story, that can only be completed with Dean saving Cas from hell." - me, after 15x18 aired and before 15x20 aired
> 
> Apparently I have to do everything myself.

“Jack.” 

Dean swallowed when his kid-slash-God turned to face him, as he looked into those eyes and really _saw_ , for the first time, the inestimable vastness of the being he was speaking to. 

“Dean,” Jack said evenly, with a barely-there smile on the corner of his mouth, like he knew what Dean was about to say.

Hell, maybe he did. Didn’t take Godhood to know how Dean Winchester’s mind worked.

“You’ve gotta bring him back,” Dean said, quiet enough to control the tremble of his voice. Jack wasn’t Chuck, Dean didn’t need to bargain or convince him how important Cas was or how much he deserved to live. Cas was even more Jack’s dad than Dean or Sam, of course he’d bring Cas back. Dean had no good reason to feel this fucking terrified.

Jack nodded slightly, like he’d expected the words, and Dean exhaled when the kid didn’t argue, when he just closed his eyes with a look of concentration.

The cautious relief that had begun to unfurl in Dean’s chest withered when a furrow appeared between Jack’s brows. “I can’t,” he said slowly.

“What? Why?” Dean demanded, and the words wanted to be angry but they came out pleading. He felt Sam shift closer, felt the touch of a hand on his elbow, but he brushed it off. “Chuck was able to yank Lucifer out of the Empty, why can’t you just do the same thing for Cas?”

“It’s the deal he made,” Jack said, and his face was agonized enough that Dean pinched his lips shut. “Cas _consented_ to be taken. He… he belongs to the Empty now.”

A sick feeling roiled in Dean's stomach, tightened the back of his throat like he might puke. Cas had fought for so long just to be free from control, free to make his own choices and live his own life, and the thought of the angel being imprisoned in a lightless cage, at the mercy of a _very_ angry cosmic entity, filled Dean with hot, panicked urgency. 

Dean’s hands curled into helpless fists. “Well, then just - just pop me into the Empty so I can find Cas and get him to _un_ consent!”

“Nothing human can exist in the Empty,” Jack immediately replied, shaking his head. “It would just - spit you back out, and probably kill you in the process.” 

“Then -” Dean pulled in a deep breath. Made his choice. “Then make me not human.”

“Dean!” Sam interjected, but Dean didn’t have the patience for this conversation here and now.

“You’d do it,” Dean said roughly. His eyes swung over to pin his little brother with a look of raw desperation. “For Eileen. You’d do it for her.”

Sam’s mouth fell open as he rocked back on his heels, as surprise and a tiny sliver of hurt flashed over his face, but he didn’t say anything else.

“You want me to… turn you into an angel?” Jack said, and hell, it was a tiny bit satisfying to be able to shock God himself. 

Dean shifted, and admittedly, he hesitated for a second. This was… fuck, he didn’t want to do this. Michael’s possession of his body was still a pink-skinned scar on Dean’s soul, and what Dean really wanted now, more than anything, was just to be fucking _normal_. And normalcy was right beyond their fingertips with Chuck brought down, but the fact was, there would be no such thing as normal, much less happy, without Cas.

Nobody came up with another suggestion in Dean’s moment of hesitation, and Cas’s blood was still burning a hole through his shoulder, despite the jacket bearing the angel’s handprint currently hanging in his closet. Dean could still feel it pressing on his skin.

He nodded once. “If that’s what it takes to get Cas back.”

“Dean.” Sam’s voice was gentle this time, and that was worse.

“Sammy, I have to do this.” Dean finally turned to face his brother, to face the fact that he was asking Sam to lose his son to Godhood and risk losing his brother entirely at the same time, just after losing his best friend and his girl. Sam’s eyes were red and wet, and Dean hated making this harder, but it was time for both of them to go find their - their people.

“I have to get him back,” Dean said quietly, and he knew that his face was giving everything away, but what did it matter anymore? If Dean had just stopped hiding and running from this a long time ago, things might have been different.

Sam stared at him for a long, heavy second, but finally he dropped his eyes and nodded. “Yeah,” Sam said, hoarse and resigned. “Yeah, I know.” 

Swallowing, Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, pressed them into Sam’s hand as he stepped forward to curl his other arm around the giant’s shoulders. “You go find Eileen,” he rasped, “and we’ll meet you back at the bunker as soon as we can, alright?”

Both of Sam’s long arms wrapped around him in a spine-poppingly tight squeeze, and Dean patted his back. 

This time, Dean had every intention of coming back, but it was comforting nonetheless to know that if the worst happened, Sam could manage without him. It wasn’t just the two of them anymore.

When Dean stepped back, he pulled up a brave smile that Sam no doubt saw through, but it wouldn’t help if he just admitted how much it scared him to alter the very fabric of his being. This wasn’t self-sacrifice, Dean told himself, it was just… self-transformation. 

Cas would do the same thing for him. _Had_ done the same thing for him.

“Okay, kid,” Dean said, with enough bravado to straighten his back and hold his head up high. “Angel me up.”

As he braced his legs for whatever was about to hit him, Dean thought about how his body had been created to house an archangel. He met Jack’s kind eyes and said, more softly, “Make me strong enough to save him.”

Jack nodded, and the world around them seemed to slow and dim - not that the people walking down the street were taking much notice of what was happening anyway. The young God held out his closed hand between them, and when his fingers opened, a pale blue glow sat in the middle of his palm. 

The Grace began to reach its misty tendrils towards its intended host, and Dean had to screw his feet to the pavement to keep himself still. Had to force himself not to instinctively reach for a weapon as the Grace swirled into his face.

“Fuck,” Dean whispered, then shut his eyes and opened his mouth.

He felt it glide between his lips, over his tongue, cold like peppermint and hot like a fever. It was alien and fundamentally antithetical to Dean’s human body, he very nearly choked on it, but it sank down his throat smoother than any liquor to curl in his belly like a living, pulsing star.

Dean had two seconds to think _Is that it?_ before he felt himself explode.

Not in pieces, but in power.

A scream ripped out of Dean’s throat, the sound of mortal flesh burning up under the nuclear bomb going off in his chest; blinding light flared out of his skin simultaneous to a shockwave that would have destroyed the town if Jack hadn’t held up his hands to contain it. 

As quickly as the excruciating pain had erupted, it disappeared, sucking back in on itself and leaving Dean -

No, actually, he wasn’t gasping, he wasn’t bent over with his hands on his knees like he expected, he wasn’t even shaking. Dean stood perfectly straight and still, and for some reason, the very first thing he noticed was that he wasn’t in any pain at all, for the first time he could remember.

There was no strain in his lower back, no ache in his right knee, no crick in his neck, no dull pressure at his temples - all the little things that lingered or came back even after Cas or Jack had healed him. _Nothing_ hurt.

Dean blinked, and look around slowly. He could… 

He could feel the clusters of atoms vibrating all around them, he could feel the dividing of his own cells; he could feel the particles of light hitting his face and the buzz of radio frequencies against his ears. He could feel the earth rotating beneath him, the whole solar system spinning on its journey through the galaxy. He could feel the way time moved ever so slightly faster above his head than at his feet. 

Looking at the people passing by on the sidewalk, Dean could see how small yet magnificent they were. Such short, tiny existences, but each one unique, each one capable of everyday miracles like love and trust and hope. They were so flawed, full of petty grievances and limping with trauma, and they were perfect.

In his distraction, Dean hardly realized what was happening until his weight shifted, automatically counterbalancing as three pairs of wings were born between his shoulder blades, heavy and weightless all at once. 

Dean craned his head to look, to watch as they unfolded and stretched out until each black feather reflected grass-green in the sunshine, and a helpless laugh shook out of him.

The power and the wings and the celestial perspective were things he’d experienced before, but only as a crushed, gagged passenger in his body, a weak prisoner forced to witness his own hands committing atrocities - none of it had ever been _his_. This body, this power, these wings, all of it was Dean. 

“Awesome,” Dean murmured.

He saw Sam then, leaning on the Impala for support and staring at Dean with a mixture of awe and horror. Dean smiled at him, and it was real this time.

Everything seemed so much _clearer_ now, so much simpler and easier. None of the shit he’d been hung up on actually mattered.

“I love you, Sammy,” Dean said, marveling at how effortless it was to say the words. “And I…” 

He pulled in a breath he didn’t actually need, just to feel the loose freedom inside his chest. “I love Cas.”

Dean smiled, a joyful grin that lit up his whole face. “I love Cas,” he said again, tears spilling down his cheeks as he realized that Cas had been right. That there was happiness in just saying it. 

For _so long_ Dean had been burying those words as deep as he could, digging graves of shame in the certainty that his love was a poisonous thing that cursed anyone it touched. Even when Dean had grown out of his father’s shadow just, just enough to admit to himself that he liked men (or man-shaped beings, whatever) as much as he liked women, he had never thought that offering up his angry, rotten heart to an angel, a _hero_ like Cas was even an - an _option._

It was so easy to see, now, that love was never shameful.

Love was the glue that held the universe together and the spark that took a lump of matter and made it alive. Even imperfect love was worth having, worth giving. 

Sam was still staring at him, but the fear was slowly receding behind a tentative answering smile. “I know, Dean,” he said softly, like a blessing. He straightened and cautiously stepped closer, looking torn between staring at Dean’s wings and Dean’s smile. Despite his obviously lingering uncertainty, Sam reached out to clap his brother on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you, man.”

It had been years since Dean had _really_ thought that Sam would judge him, but the approval still warmed and settled something in his heart, angel or not. Knowing that Sam would be happy to see them together let Dean stand just a tiny bit taller.

Dean was opening his mouth to say _Thanks_ when Sam nodded, like he had decided something. “Now go tell _him_ that.”

Another laugh broke out of the newborn angel, and he swiped at Sam with one of his less-powerful wings. "Bitch." 

Tears gleamed in Sam's eyes as he smiled. "Jerk."


	2. the dreadful outer brink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to everyone who left comments and kudos'd and subscribed; your frankly unexpected enthusiasm gave me a huge boost of motivation and endorphins both.
> 
> Many thanks also to [pathsofpassion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pathsofpassion) for betaing.
> 
> Also, head's up for a minor, vague reference to 9x03.

While Dean was learning the joy of bullying his little brother with six different wings, Jack was surveying his work with no small amount of pride.

“My first archangel,” he mused, glancing over Dean with satisfaction. Dean turned to look at Jack, smiling, and when he met those warm blue-gray eyes -

Vertigo grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook hard, turning Dean upside and down, forward and back, because he was looking at his kid, the toddler he’d (grudgingly, sometimes, yeah) raised from birth, but he was also looking at his own Creator.

His - no, it would be fucking _weird_ to call Jack his Father; Dean nipped that headfuck right in the bud.

But Jack had still made part of what Dean was now, and the one that had helped make him was gazing at him with the most loving approval Dean had ever been given. Archangel he might be, but Dean had to gulp a thick knot of emotion from his throat.

“Better than any that came before you,” Jack said, simple and confident like he was stating a fact.

And Dean, the human Dean, would have thrown up bitterness and dark humor to skirt around the genuine praise without having a mental breakdown, but now Dean could actually sense it in the fabric of reality. That he _wasn’t_ like any other angel, all of them made by Chuck’s iron fist; every angel that Jack chose to create would be different than the ones designed to mindlessly obey orders. 

Every angel that Jack chose to create from now on would be designed off the template of Dean Winchester’s love for humanity.

Dean smiled beneath a fresh wave of tears.

“All but one,” he allowed.

***

After a final round of hugs (an interesting experience, with three pairs of wings), they folded Sam up in the car and sent him after Eileen, who had started answering her texts again, with a blessing that Dean had suddenly discovered he could bestow. Sam would make it to his destination with remarkably few red lights and less gas than he’d expect.

Dean and Jack walked side by side down a jogging path as the sun began to angle lower in the sky, sharing a companionable silence while Dean began to adjust to his newfound divinity - and get used to the freakin’ _wings_ on his back. As much as he wanted to get Cas out of that hellhole _yesterday_ , rushing in without a handle on all this power wasn’t going to help.

Watching his palms fill up with the glow of healing energy, Dean quietly asked, “So what are the odds that this is actually going to work?” 

Becoming an angel might have brightened his outlook in a number of ways, but Dean hadn’t turned into a rose-colored optimist just that easy.

Jack pressed his lips together but didn’t take his eyes off the glimmering treetops. “I honestly don’t know. The Empty is the only place my power can’t reach, and the Shadow…” Jack shook his head. “I can’t predict what the Shadow will do. I only know that it’s angry, and it won’t give Castiel up easily.”

Dean’s hands clenched in fists, glowing now with smiting energy.

“You won’t be able to get Cas back on power alone.” Jack turned his fathomless gaze on his first creation. “You can’t fight the Shadow, Dean, you can’t kill it. It can’t kill you either, but it can hurt you. It can scan your mind and use your secrets against you. And…” Jack slowed to a stop.

“More good news,” Dean grumbled under his breath, but turned to face his son-slash-father.

“I can’t be absolutely sure that I’ll be able to retrieve you from the Empty if you can’t get out on your own,” Jack said, the peaceful lines of his face creasing in worry.

Dean nodded, and knew before the words were even said that it didn’t change his mind at all. “Certainty of death, small chance of success…” He waggled his eyebrows. “What are we waiting for?”

Jack tilted his head in that eerily Cas-like way. Dean sighed.

“Just because you’re God now doesn’t get you out of movie night, kid.” The finger Dean pointed had a far more authoritative quality to it now. “When I get back, we’re doing a Lord of the Rings marathon.”

Dean expected something like one of Cas’s half-fond eye rolls, maybe a noncommittal sigh; he wasn’t expecting Jack to smile with such overwhelmingly genuine pride, or to lift a hand and lay it gently against his cheek. “I believe in you, Dean,” Jack said, sincere and without any qualifications at all. “If anyone can get Cas back, it’s you.”

Tears rose to Dean’s eyes yet again, but at least the tradeoff to the overactive waterworks was a freedom from embarrassment, an opened door to the cell of his self-loathing. Dean could look at his own human emotions now and forgive himself for the not-actually-terrible crime of feeling.

“I love you, Jack,” he just said, quiet, because he should have said it before, and he needed the kid to know that all that anger and blame - it was in the past. 

Jack smiled wider.

Dean breathed in deeply to taste the cool, living air, and took one last moment to look around at the green trees, the blue sky, the golden sunlight, the white and pink wildflowers, the rainbow of colors he couldn’t name in spectrums not visible to human eyes. 

“Okay,” Dean said. “I’m ready.”

Jack nodded, and touched two fingers to Dean’s forehead.

This time, Dean could feel the shift between dimensions on a molecular level, the same as he could feel the sudden and complete absence of life, warmth, light, or movement.

The Empty was exactly that, an utter void of still blackness that seemed to hungrily leech at - well, Dean supposed he didn’t have a soul anymore, but whatever it was that he _did_ have. It wasn’t the worst place he’d ever been, not by a long shot, but it still gave him the fuckin’ heebie-jeebies.

“I _just_ got everyone back to sleep.”

Dean whipped around at the sound of that weird, exasperated, but _familiar_ -

Apparently, being an archangel didn’t stop his heart from racing like a jackhammer or his throat from sticking shut.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here.”

The voice would have been enough to make Dean realize that this wasn’t Cas, but the alien way it moved its face drove the nail home and sent Dean’s stomach sinking. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

“I’m new,” Dean sneered, lip curling with barely-restrained disgust at the sight of this _thing_ wearing Cas’s body. The whole righteous fury business was no joke.

“That you are, hot stuff,” the Shadow drawled, oozing closer. “Very, _very_ new. So new you’re not even dead yet. Which begs the question…” The thing using Cas’s face leaned so close Dean had to take a step back. “Why. Are you. _Here?_ ”

Dean’s jaw clenched. “I’m here for Castiel.”

The Shadow stretched Cas’s mouth in a grotesque rictus of a grin. “You must be _Dean,_ ” it all but purred. “Oh, I have heard _all_ about _you_.” 

It took all of Dean’s willpower not to slide the angel blade from his sleeve and stab this thing in the neck, just to see what would happen, if he could hurt it. He would have, if he didn’t need to make a concerted effort to not piss it off more than he already had.

“If you know about me, then you know I want Cas back.”

The Shadow affected an elaborately sympathetic face. “Aw, that’s too bad, little fella. Castiel belongs to me, fair and square. He had his moment of happiness, and now…” 

It made a fancy little wave, and suddenly a tacky metal throne appeared, with -

“ _Cas_ ,” Dean cried, jolting forward on instinct. He didn’t exactly have a great track record with seeing Cas slumped unconscious in chairs.

“Ah, ah, ah.” The Empty stopped him with one hand flat on his chest, solid and irresistible as gravity. It stepped in front of Dean, eclipsing his view. “Look, don’t touch.”

Dean forced himself not to resist - and not to take a swing at this thing either. “Why do you even _want_ Cas, anyway? He’s the one that woke you up.”

The Shadow clapped its hands together with maniacal glee. “Great! Question! Oh, I _love_ audience participation! You see…” It spun around and strolled towards the throne. “I like to say that all the angels and demons inhabiting this place are sleeping peacefully for eternity, but that’s just a fun little lie. Shh, don’t tell anybody,” the Empty added, flashing a wink over one shoulder.

“The truth is, all of you are just here to play your greatest hits for me while I sleep. And this one? Your precious little _Cas_?” The Shadow draped itself over the back of the throne, one hand propping up its chin while the other dragged lazily through Cas’s hair. “He’s going to give me sweet dreams for a long, long time.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean said, closing his hands in tight fists to stop them from shoving this slimy _entity_ off of Cas.

“Oh, don’t you know, tough guy?” The Shadow gave a coy little smile. “Castiel has more regrets than any other angel or demon in this place. In fact -” It leaned down, head tilted, as if listening to something Cas was saying, then arranged its stolen face in an expression of surprise. “Most of those regrets have something to do with _you_ , Dean Winchester.”

Dean’s face twitched despite his best effort to keep it flat, to not show how that hit had landed.

“Oh, so many regrets in here,” it said dreamily, wiggling its fingertips against Cas’s temple. “The things he’s done, the deals he’s made, the angels he’s killed, the principles he’s betrayed… so it’s not that shocking, really, what Castiel regrets the most.”

The Shadow glanced up with cold, smirking eyes. “His deepest regret… is meeting you.”

Dean exhaled like the air had been dragged out of his chest, and he couldn’t find any to replace it. He glared at the prehistoric shitstain touching Cas like it owned him, but he knew it was weak and ineffectual, that he had no good weapons against this kind of attack.

“You’re lying,” Dean gritted out between his teeth.

“Am I?” the Empty replied easily, squinting its eyes and pouting its lips. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? If Castiel just hadn’t been the one to rescue you from hell, if it had just been another angel who got to you first… none of this would have happened to him, would it? He’d still be alive, and he wouldn’t have all these regrets crowded up in here.” It rapped its knuckles on the top of Cas’s head.

“Even if that were true,” Dean said, his voice dark and only shaking the slightest amount, “it couldn’t make _me_ regret meeting _him_.” He took a single, deliberate step forward. “And it couldn’t convince me to leave here without him.”

All expression fell off the Shadow’s face, revealing something cruel and vacant underneath.

“So we’re gonna have to do this the hard way, huh?” It straightened up and oiled its way around the throne.

Dean edged back the step he’d just taken to buy himself an extra second, time he needed to focus his eyes on Cas’s slack face, on that ugly, perfect trenchcoat, that messy tie the same color as his eyes, those hands resting loose on his thighs - those hands that had saved him from hell and then saved him over and over again, hands that had bled for him and died for him and loved him for so, so long without ever asking for anything back -

And Dean gathered up all of his love, all his need, all his want, his longing, his hope, his desperation, his grief, his terrifyingly sharp anticipation of getting both of them out of here and pulling Cas into his arms and _telling_ him - everything he had, and as the Shadow’s hands fisted in the lapels of his jacket, Dean released it on the back of every speck of angelic power humming in his blood, in a sonic boom of “ _ **Cas!**_ ” that was deafening enough to drown out even the Shadow yelling, “ _NO!_ ”

The angel’s limp body jolted like he’d been hit with defibrillator paddles, and Dean’s breath caught in his throat.

Cas opened his eyes.

Dean and Cas stared at each other, and were given the rare privilege of hearing a primordial cosmic entity scream, “ _FUCK!_ ”


	3. caught up into love and taught the whole of life in a new rhythm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so fucking much for all of the outrageous support you guys have shown me on this brief but memorable journey. All of your comments and enthusiasm have really blown me away and I'm so grateful. I hope you guys enjoy the end as much as I do.
> 
> Chapter titles are taken from the first half of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese number 7, which goes like this:
> 
> _The face of all the world is changed, I think,  
>  Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul  
> Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole  
> Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink  
> Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,  
> Was caught up into love, and taught the whole  
> Of life in a new rhythm._

“Dean?”

The archangel’s heart leapt at the sound of his name in the _real_ Cas’s voice, groggy and dazed and beautiful - but it was quickly followed by his stomach caving in and his nose exploding with pain under the Shadow’s fist and knee, respectively.

“Dean!”

“Don’t. _Move_. Castiel,” the Shadow snarled, holding Dean up on his knees with one hand fisted in his hair. “Or I’ll tear his wings off one at a time.”

“His - _wings_?” Rage, confusion, and disbelief wrestled across Cas’s face. He leaned off the edge of the throne, brimming with tension and white-knuckling the chair arms.

“Heya, Cas,” Dean grinned under his bleeding nose. Seeing Cas awake and alive (sort of) sent euphoria bubbling up from his chest to his brain, outweighing the pain until his fractured nose felt more like a papercut.

And hey, that was fucking cool: with a minor flex of power, Dean healed the broken cartilage and erased the blood from his face. 

“We beat Chuck, Jack is God now, and he made me an archangel. Pretty sweet feathers, huh?” Yeah, he preened, flaring all his wings out to show them off, but like he was gonna have this kind of equipment and _not_ show off for Cas?

Cas looked shocked and gutted at the same time. “And you… died?” 

“Nope,” Dean said cheerfully. “Came to get you back.”

“Not that this isn’t a _touching_ little reunion,” the Empty bit out, yanking Dean’s head back to a harsh angle, “but all the _go-getter attitude_ in the world doesn’t change the fact that Castiel _belongs_ to me.” Its mouth spread in a sinister Cheshire smile. “He _agreed_ to be mine.”

“Yeah, the thing about that is,” Dean said, and shoved back up on his feet, all in the same movement bashing his rocklike head into the Shadow’s stolen skull. It cried out and stumbled back. “ _I_ never agreed to it.”

Taking a deep breath, Dean turned and met wide blue eyes. “And he was mine a long time before he was yours.”

Cas’s face softened into the most tender look Dean had ever seen, and after more than a decade of staring at that face, he could read the tiny flickers swimming beneath the stoic surface: the surprise, the wonder, the hope, the terror of hoping.

Dean was smiling back, warmth unfolding in his chest, and unprepared for the iron grip that latched around his throat.

“Do you think that means anything to me, you pathetic mongrel?” the Shadow said, its voice quiet the way a knife is quiet. “Do you really think I will let him go just because you waltz in here and claim him as yours?”

“No,” Dean choked out, grabbing onto the arm lifting him onto his toes. “I think you’re going to let him go because if you don’t, I’ll come back.”

The Shadow’s lips thinned and its fingers tightened.

Dean grinned recklessly. “I’ll come back, again and again and again, for as long as I’m alive. And if I die, then Sam will come. If Sam fails, then Claire will come. Then Eileen, then Charlie, then Bobby, then Jody, then Donna, then Garth. Because Cas is _family_ and we are _never_ going to stop coming for him.”

His eyes cut over, finding Cas standing just beyond arm’s reach with tears in his eyes. Dean looked back steadily as he swore, “We’ll wake you up a thousand times until you give him back.” 

“Dean,” Cas whispered.

The Shadow was seething, its mouth trembling with rage. “You _little fucking_ -”

“And,” Dean said, then had to look away with a twinge of guilt. “I can guarantee that Cas will never bother you again if you let him go.”

An endless minute passed of the Shadow glaring with icy, savage contempt, before it finally threw Dean aside with a growl. “ _Fine_ ,” it hissed as Dean stumbled into Cas. “He’s more trouble than he’s worth. Just get _out_.” 

Dean felt strong arms catch him, and for just a second he forgot about the dangerously pissed off cosmic entity as he looked up and met Cas’s eyes from inches away. The angel was staring at him with something like awe, with a hope that wasn’t quite so afraid to be.

Cas opened his mouth to speak, and Dean wanted to do this, he did, but they really couldn’t do it here.

Straightening up, Dean shook out his right arm to let the angel blade slide down into his palm. “Cas,” he said, resolute and only a little apologetic. “Trust me?”

Castiel frowned. “Of course,” he answered, shaking his head. “What -”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Dean promised softly. “Just trust me.”

Green and blue met and held as as Dean lifted the angel blade and carefully - so fucking carefully - sliced a thin, shallow incision across the middle of Cas’s throat. The angel’s eyes widened, but he didn’t object when Dean lifted a small vial with his other hand and collected the glowing river of Cas’s Grace as it poured out between the edges of his skin.

As Castiel became human before his eyes, at his own hands, Dean curled all six wings around him in a protective cocoon. The rustling of his feathers was the only sound in this nothingness, a faint susurrus as they closed in like living shields. With one hand, Dean flicked the vial shut and slid it back into his pocket, while his other brushed over Cas’s neck, quickly sealing up the cleft skin.

“Hold on,” Dean said, and wrapped both hands around Cas’s shoulders.

Like Jack had said, the Empty spit out anything human. Dean was lucky enough to hitch a ride.

They landed in a grassy tundra that Dean somehow knew was in the middle of outer Mongolia. 

“Uh, hang on,” he said. 

A flap of his wings, and this time they made it to Lebanon.

Dean looked around, saw the bunker entrance nearby, and finally relaxed.

That was, until he realized he was still clutching a human Cas, whose stare really hadn’t lost any of its intensity with its mortality.

Awkwardly, Dean dropped his hands. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I didn’t want to take your Grace without asking, but I figured that if it got you out of there you wouldn’t -”

“Dean, it’s okay,” Cas interrupted gently. “It’s - it’s okay.”

Dean let out a deep exhale, and actually relaxed this time. “Okay. That’s - that’s good.”

They stared at each other, a mountain of words built up between them too tall to climb. Dean wanted to say so many things, there was a fucking library of things Dean wanted to say to Cas, but where the hell could he start?

This - maybe this, he could do.

Sliding his angel blade out again, Dean flipped it in his palm and held it out to Cas hilt-first. “My turn,” he said, and tilted his head back to expose his throat.

Cas’s mouth fell open, and his eyes flicked from the blade to Dean’s face. “Dean,” he protested, “you’re an _archangel_. I could sense how powerful you are. Are you sure you -”

“I don’t care about the power, Cas.” Dean glanced over his shoulder to check out his awesome wings one more time, admiring their emerald iridescence in the sunlight, and then let them fade from corporeality. “It was just a means to an end. All I want…”

Dean’s throat went tight and his eyes stung, but he lifted his head to meet Cas’s watchful gaze. “All I want is a normal life.” He breathed out. “With you.”

Cas sucked in a breath just shy of a gasp. “Dean,” he whispered. “Do you…”

Smiling softly, Dean wrapped his hand around Cas’s on the angel blade, guiding it up to his throat and pressing in until the flesh parted. He produced another vial, which Cas clumsily took and rushed to hold in place, worry in his expression as the Grace drained out.

Dean felt himself deflate not unlike a balloon, the _vastness_ shrinking and the energy leaking away until he felt almost normal again. It was - different, a few left-behind pieces stuck to the walls of his soul and some of his foundations cracked into new, broader shapes he wouldn’t have recognized this morning, changes he wouldn’t have known he needed. 

When he opened his eyes, Dean was human.

He watched Cas gape at the vial cradled in his palm, watched as he looked up and saw the Dean he knew looking back.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean murmured. 

Cas’s bottom lip quivered. “You - you did all this -”

“For you,” Dean said, unflinching. A fond smile curved up his mouth. “Did you really think I’d let you get the last word like that?”

The former angel laughed, wet and aching with relief. His shining eyes studied Dean’s face, so clearly searching with barely-leashed desperation, not knowing how to ask.

Dean shuffled closer and raised his hands to meticulously frame them around Cas’s jaw, gentle and deliberate and decidedly unplatontic. He looked over the familiar, revered lines of this face and stopped to just bask in the fact that Cas was back, alive, _here_ , real and solid under his hands. Gazing at him with love in his eyes that was the same human as it had been celestial.

It wasn’t quite as easy to say as it had been earlier, but it wasn’t as hard as he’d imagined.

“I love you, Cas,” Dean whispered. “I love you so fucking much.”

Tears spilled down Cas’s cheeks, and so much _joy_ lit up his face that Dean could barely breathe. Maybe he shed a few tears too, that was okay.

“And you were right,” he croaked past the knot in his throat and the love in his chest, “but I think happiness is in the having too. I want.” Dean’s breath was shuddering in his lungs. “I want to be happy with you.”

Cas was the brave one again, then, doing the hard work of leaning in the last tiny, infinite space between them and gracelessly, ardently crushing their mouths together. A whimper came out of Dean’s throat that he didn’t even have the heart to deny, not when he was busy slinging his arms around Cas’s ribs and parting his lips to finally learn what his angel tasted like.

They only broke apart when they drifted too far to one side and nearly went down in a tangle of limbs; they laughed, eyes crinkling and hearts racing.

Dean was smiling as he reached up to touch Cas’s face, to brush the hair back from his forehead.

“Let’s go home.”

***

Even after it was all said and done (and _a lot_ had been said and done), it wasn’t like them to use an abundance of words when a handful would do just as well.

“Stay with me, Cas,” Dean said, his voice rough with emotion.

Cas smiled and his eyes sparkled. “I will.”

Dean’s hands were shaking as he slid the ring onto Cas’s finger.

“Stay with me, Dean.” The words were clear and strong and infinitely tender.

Ah, fuck it. Dean was allowed to cry at his own wedding. “I will.”

Dean’s hands were still shaking as Cas pushed the ring over his knuckle, as his thumb stroked across the silver band that pressed the words _I love you_ into Dean’s skin.

Sam was smiling like a maniac as he looked between the two of them. “I now pronounce you husband and husband.”

Applause broke out from the crowd gathered in the field behind the bunker. Bobby was there, as were Charlie and Stevie; Garth had flown in with Bess and the twins; Rowena had made the trip all the way topside; Jody and Donna had driven down with all their girls; Eileen was there, the diamond on her finger glittering as she clapped; even Jack stood off to one side, smiling happily.

Cheers and whistles nearly drowned out Sam’s shout of, “ _You may now kiss your groom!_ ” but Dean didn’t let that stop him from lunging forward with a wolfish grin, seizing a yelping Cas in his arms and dipping him backwards to kiss the living daylights out of him.

The glowing vials around their necks clinked together between them.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr [here.](https://livebloggingmydescentintomadness.tumblr.com/)


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